Consumer Watchdog Seeks Alteration of NIH Plan

Citing the “perverse effect” of proposed NIH stem cell research rules, the Consumer Watchdog group today called for changes in the guidelines along the lines recommended by the California stem cell agency and the Interstate Alliance on Stem Cell Research.

John M. Simpson, stem cell project director of the Santa Monica, Ca., group, said that the NIH plan would bar funding of research that had received financial support from the Bush Administration.

In a press release from his organization, Simpson said,

"Most of us were heartened when President Obama lifted Bush Administration restrictions on funding stem cell research, but the perverse effect of these proposed NIH rules is that the limited research scientists were able to conduct under Bush will now be ineligible for federal funding,

"Certainly this is not what President Obama intended and the regulations must be modified."

Simpson also noted that comments can be sent to the NIH online at the following Web site: http://nihoerextra.nih.gov/stem_cells/add.htm

Latest CIRM Comments on NIH hESC Rules

Here is a link to the most recent version of CIRM's comments on the proposed NIH rules on human embryonic stem cell research. Comments to the NIH must be filed by May 26.

CIRM Seeks Changes in NIH hESC Plans

The CIRM board of directors today approved recommendations for changes in proposed NIH rules for research involving human embryonic stem cells.

The action came on a 20-0 vote in a session during which directors were told that 7,000 responses to the rules had been received by the NIH. CIRM Chairman Robert Klein said the responses were running 7 to 1 against.

CIRM supports the NIH plans with some changes. The opposition appears to oppose them outright for religious reasons.

Board members were encouraged to individually call on their constituencies to file comments on behalf of hESC research with the NIH. Philip Pizzo, dean of the Stanford School of Medicine, said he had already done so in his weekly newsletter and emailed a copy of his comments to board staff for wider distribution.

Klein said the agency could not legally ask all its grant recipients in a “mass mailing” to support hESC research, but he said individual board members were free to do whatever they wished.

Geoff Lomax, senior officer for the CIRM Standards Working Group, developed the recommendations following a public hearing and contacts with researchers. He said the suggestions were aimed at avoiding the loss of material that is needed scientifically and already in use.

The document presented to the board will be refined by attorneys and staff before it is sent to the NIH by May 26.

Torres, Palin and Stem Cell Research

It was the first known public comment by a member of the board of directors of the California stem cell agency on onetime vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

The remarks came Friday from Art Torres, recently elected co- vice chairman of the CIRM board,

The occasion was a tour of stem cell lab facilities at UC San Francisco and the Gladstone Institute involving House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, according to an account by reporter Carla Marinucci in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Pelosi was asked about comments by Palin, attacking President Obama for his support for hESC research. Pelosi stoutly defended the research, declaring, "We need science, science, science, science, science."

Torres said that Palin's comments were "very disappointing...because it's such a blatant campaign move."

Marinucci wrote,

"He said she was 'playing to the crowd' for a 2012 run, but hasn't offered any alternatives to the major advances that might be made in biomedical research."

Readers left 124 comments on the Chronicle piece, but not one mentioned Torres' comments, as far as we can tell. However, one commentator said that Pelosi said science only four times – not five.

Consumer Watchdog: New Role Needed for CIRM

In an article that was eclipsed last week by the vice chair and other affairs at the CIRM board meeting, one longtime observer of the California stem cell scene says the agency needs to step back, hand over the reins to the federal government and redefine its role.

John M. SimpsonI(see photo), stem cell project director for Consumer Watchdog of Santa Monica, Ca., made the comments in an op-ed piece March 12 in The Sacramento Bee.

He wrote,

"The California program has yet to produce cures; I believe it ultimately will.

"But the new active federal role demands a new CIRM approach to maximize the scientific benefits of its grants. What's needed is a close partnership with the federal National Institutes of Health, in which the state's institute is the junior partner. And CIRM needs to emphasize science, not hype. For its part, the NIH must acknowledge CIRM's contributions while the federal agency was largely out of the picture."

Simpson continued,

"Even if a few large egos are bruised, the challenge facing the state's institute is to relinquish leadership to the feds and figure out how to augment and complement the NIH efforts. There needs to be close collaboration between each organization's scientists.

"NIH emphasizes basic research. CIRM could emphasize funding later-stage translational, preclinical or even early-stage clinical trials. Federal law still prohibits using federal funds to derive new stem cell lines from embryos, though experiments can be funded once the cells lines are established. That is another opportunity for CIRM. The point is that the agency must determine where it adds the most value and concentrate efforts there."

Not all the readers of the Simpson piece agreed. One anonymous reader commented on The Bee website,

"This article is just more hype to try and divert state money from schools, hospitals, etc. and pour it into a 'rat hole' that has failed to produce anything of value."

The reader also wrote,

"Why doesn't the Bee report on the financial problems facing CIRM and it's failure to be able to fund grants they have already 'awarded.'. Where are the stories about CIRM's pending funding shortfall's The taxpayers need the facts in order to judge this mess. The best CIRM can deliver is paying its own executives and Washington lobbyists! "

Zach Hall on Monday Morning at the White House

Zach Hall, the first president of the California stem cell agency and now a director of the New York Stem Cell Foundation, attended the ceremonies at the White House on Monday. Here is his account of the event and some of its implications. Our thanks to Hall (pictured at left) for providing the article.

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On a soft spring morning, a distinguished and festive group gathered at the East Entrance to the White House. It was a gathering of the tribe of embryonic stem cell research supporters – scientists, Washington officials, patients, and patient advocates, many of whom had been working for years for the day when the Presidential restrictions on stem cell research would be lifted. As we waited, we greeted colleagues, shared our excitement about the event, and began the first round of picture-taking. California was well-represented, with stem cell scientists Irv Weissman and Renee Reijo-Pera from Stanford; Bob Klein, Chairman of CIRM and author of Proposition 71; and CEO Tom Okarma from Geron. Leading stem cell scientists Jamie Thomson from Wisconsin, Shinya Yamanaka from the Gladstone Institute and Japan, John Gearhart from Pennsylvania and George Daley from Harvard were there, as were several Nobel Prize winners (Mike Bishop from UCSF, Steven Chu, the new Secretary of Energy, Robert Horvitz, Eric Kandel, Harold Varmus, Peter Agre) and other scientific notables (Bruce Alberts, Eric Lander, Francis Collins). Among the California patient advocates were long-time stem cell advocates, Roman Reed and his parents, Gloria and Don, and Katie Hood of the Michael J. Fox Foundation. A number of those present (Alta Charo, Clive Svenson, John Wagner, Janet Rowland) are well-known to CIRM as members of its Working Groups.

After passing through security, we entered the White House and, after a brief wait, streamed into the East Room where we were joined by a Congressional delegation including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Diane Feinstein and Representative Henry Waxman from California, Senators Tom Harkin and Orrin Hatch, and Representatives Mike Castle and Diana DeGette. One entire wall was packed with TV cameramen, journalists and photographers, whose presence was made evident throughout the event by the constant chorus of camera clicks.

The ceremony began with the entry of seven distinguished scientists, Nobelists and others, who would stand behind President Obama as he signed the Executive Order for embryonic stem cell research and the Memorandum on scientific integrity, their presence a clear signal of the importance of science to his administration.

The President entered, bounding onto the stage to a prolonged standing ovation. His first words were: “Well, I’m excited, too.” His speech was firm, clear and thoughtful, with the eloquence that we have come to expect from him. He was enthusiastic, but appropriately cautious about the promise of stem cell research, recognizing that “there is no finish line in the work of science.” He acknowledged and expressed respect for those who oppose the research, but cited the strong majority of Americans who believe the research should go forward. President Obama then adroitly tied the reversal of the presidential restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research to his effort to restore scientific integrity to government, to listen to scientists even when (“especially when,” as he added) it is inconvenient, and to “make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology.” Needless to say, these words were warmly received by those present. The President ended with a tribute to Christopher and Dana Reeve and to the many people who have worked tirelessly on behalf of embryonic stem cell research.

The President then moved to the desk and signed the documents using multiple pens, as is the custom. “I’ve learned to extend my signature,” he said. After shaking the hands of those near the front (I was delighted to be one of them), the President left. Still excited and savoring the moment, the group lingered, reluctant to leave, until White House attendants pointed us to the door.

The President’s remarks, as well as the stem cell document itself, contained several small surprises. The general expectation among the stem cell community was that the Executive Order would permit federal funding of research on stem cell lines as long as they were made from surplus IVF embryos using money from private or state sources. The Executive Order, however, makes no specific mention of what can and cannot be funded, but directs the NIH to provide guidance on that point within 120 days, in light of “widely recognized guidelines.” This leaves open the possibility that the NIH could fund research on embryonic stem cell lines made by other means, including somatic cell nuclear transfer, as long as federal money was not used to make the lines. The use of federal funds to actually make stem cell lines is, in any case, illegal under the Dickey-Wicker amendment which prohibits any research that results in harm or destruction of a human embryo.

The second issue concerns whether or not legislation is desirable. The White House had indicated previously that this was a matter for the Congress to decide, but in his speech he suggested that his former colleagues “still have plenty of work to do.” Presumably this is encouragement to pass a new version of the Castle-DeGette bill, which allows federal funding for new lines made from IVF embryos, but might be taken as a reference to the Dickey-Wicker amendment. A legislative battle over Dickey-Wicker would be much more difficult and more polarizing than a revised Castle-DeGette bill.

In the end, one can only admire the President’s eagerness to engage the scientific community in solving the many problems that the nation faces, the use of stem cells among them. To be there as a scientist, among so many distinguished colleagues and supporters of biomedical research, and to see the President demonstrate his commitment to our shared enterprise, both in word and deed, was truly inspiring. I felt privileged to be at the White House on this historic occasion.

Snippets from Obama Stem Cell Media Coverage

Here are some tidbits from the vast coverage of President Obama's stem cell ceremony on Monday.

Nicholas Wade of the New York Times wrote:

“Members of Congress and advocates for fighting diseases have long spoken of human embryonic stem cell research as if it were a sure avenue to quick cures for intractable afflictions. Scientists have not publicly objected to such high-flown hopes, which have helped fuel new sources of grant money like the $3 billion initiative in California for stem cell research.

“In private, however, many researchers have projected much more modest goals for embryonic stem cells. Their chief interest is to derive embryonic stem cell lines from patients with specific diseases, and by tracking the cells in the test tube to develop basic knowledge about how the disease develops.

“...(M)any scientists believe that putting stem-cell-derived tissues into patients lies a long way off. Embryonic stem cells have their drawbacks. They cause tumors, and the adult cells derived from them may be rejected by the patient’s immune system. Furthermore, whatever disease process caused the patients’ tissue cells to die is likely to kill introduced cells as well. All these problems may be solvable, but so far none have been solved.”

Rob Stein of the Washington Post wrote about the job facing the NIH.

“The task of deciding what kinds of studies will be supported now falls to the National Institutes of Health, which finds itself confronting far more extensive questions than its officials were contemplating. It has 120 days to do the job.

“Among other things, officials will have to decide whether to endorse studies on cells obtained from much more contentious sources, such as embryos created specifically for research or by means of cloning techniques. “

Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times carried, on her blog, a list of guests at the Obama ceremony. They included Zach Hall, first president of CIRM, and other Californians tied to the state's stem cell agency. The list did not include CIRM Chairman Robert Klein, but other stories indicated that he attended. The current CIRM president, Alan Trounson, was invited but did not attend.

Reporter Terri Somers of the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that Klein was at the ceremony and reported that he said the door is now open for more collaboration between California scientists and those in other states.

Somers also wrote:

“At a 'Free the Stem Cells' breakfast at the home of researcher Jeanne Loring of The Scripps Research Institute, scientists gathered to watch the event and toast Obama. Some were moved to tears, Loring said, because the president's actions validated research to which they have dedicated their careers.”

Obama Watch Chapter 3: Funding Ban to be Lifted on Monday

The Washington Post reported this afternoon that President Obama on Monday will lift the restrictions on federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research.

According to reporter Rob Stein's story, the move will be announced at an event at 8 a.m. PDT. He cited an email sent out on Thursday from the White House concerning a ceremony at that time "on stem cells and restoring scientific integrity to the government process. At the event the president will sign an executive order related to stem cells."

No other significant details were disclosed.

What Bob Klein and CIRM Owe George Bush

Here is what Hank Campbell, the major domo of scientificblogging.com, says,

 "Whether you agreed with Bush or not, his restrictions on stem cell research were good for science - California alone threw $3 billion at human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research for no other reason than that Bush was against it, something that could never have occurred through the NIH, and scientists also found creative alternatives, also something that would probably not have happened."

Waiting for Obama -- The Stem Cell Delay

Wondering what Obama is wating for? When will he revoke George Bush's rules on human embryonic stem cell research?

It might be in a few weeks or perhaps even much longer, based on a story in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Reporter Marie McCullough wrote earlier this week,

"Rep. Mike Castle (R., Del.), a congressional champion of the research, said that last week, he explicitly asked White House officials about it.

"'I believe there will be an executive order lifting the funding ban,' Castle said. 'My speculation is that it will happen in a few weeks. . . . They've had a lot of things to deal with. I see no bump in the road.'"

She continued,

"Not until four days before the inauguration, during a CNN interview, did Obama say he would 'prefer' that Congress pass legislation removing Bush's restrictions, 'because those are the people's representatives.'

"That comment prompted some patients' groups to gripe that Obama was backpedaling on his campaign promise.

"But leading scientists also believe that research policy is better set by a comprehensive law than by a revocable directive.

"'I would agree with that,' said John Gearhart, a stem-cell-research pioneer who was wooed last year from Johns Hopkins University to the University of Pennsylvania. 'As researchers, we need a stable base.'"

Legislation can require many months, if not longer, to work its way through Congress, depending on other competing priorities, of which there are many, in Washington.

Klein: Federal Backing Could Lead to $1 Billion CIRM Loan Effort

Chairman Robert Klein of the California stem cell agency is proposing that the Obama administration provide loan guarantees that he projects would allow the Golden State to mount an ambitious $1 billion lending program for the biotech industry.

He broached the proposal at a Nov. 19 meeting of the Finance Subcommittee of the CIRM board of directors and plans to bring it up at a special teleconference meeting of the full board on Monday.

Klein's plan would double the size of the proposed $500 million CIRM loan program that is his brainchild. The board of directors is yet to sign off on details of the plan, which have not yet been fully worked out.

The $3 billion state stem cell agency itself has no apparent financial problems, although the state is in the midst of a $28 billion budget crisis. The voter-approved law that created the agency guarantees a steady stream of cash that cannot be touched by either the governor or the legislature. But Klein believes that the federal guarantees would help the lending effort.

At the Finance Subcommittee meeting earlier this month, Klein noted the trillion-dollar bailout figures floating around in the nation's capital. According to the transcript, he said,

"In terms of our financial interest, the loan guarantees that are being considered for a number of sectors of the economy could include the biotech sector.

"And here, if there were a 50-percent loan guarantee provision for governmental loan biotech programs, it would mean that if we had allocated conceptually, and only conceptually, because it's subject to approval of every loan at that time at the board level, but if we conceptually approved a $500 million allocation for a loan program and there were a government program for 50-percent guarantee, we'd have the possibility, subject to a lot of detailed work and legal review, to create a billion dollar program with that. So it would substantially expand our capacity for funding."

Klein brought up the proposal to seek "early input" from CIRM board members. However, the Finance Subcommittee ran out of time and adjourned without discussing the matter. He asked board members and the biotech community to send comments to him.

Klein is also seeking to lobby the Obama administration on other biotech industry matters. They include removing unspecified small business loan restrictions, expanding the FDA staff and substantially increasing funding for NIH grants.

On the restriction issue, he said,

"I believe it would be beneficial if some of those restrictions were changed to make it more possible for companies that have received venture capital funding in the past to get SBIC (Small Business Investment Corporation) loans because with falling stock prices, doing another round of stock offerings is not feasible unless you're going to hedge funds, which are extraordinarily difficult to deal with and create tremendous pressure on these small companies to the extent hedge fund money is available at all."

Klein said a substantial increase in FDA staff is needed to avoid a "choke point" on moving stem cell therapies into the clinic. He said,

"Everyone is going to need expert advice on exactly what kind of data and what kind of preclinical work is going to be required for an IND to be approved for a phase I human trial. That advice is required three years or more in advance because this is an innovative area. And so it's going to be an early priority with a lot of lead-time importance to get FDA expansion that can deal with cellular therapies as they advance."

CIRM has not yet provided written background on Klein's proposal on its Monday agenda, which also includes a plan to help ease the problem of absenteeism at board of directors meetings.

The public can listen in and participate during the teleconference meeting from locations in San Francisco (2), Los Angeles (5), La Jolla (3), Elk Grove, Sacramento, Pleasanton, Berkeley, Menlo Park, Healdsburg, San Carlos, San Diego, Irvine (2) and Duarte. You can find the specific addresses on the agenda.

WSJ: No Magic Stem Cell Funding Cure From Feds

Alan Trounson, president of the $3 billion California stem cell agency, is minimizing the impact of President-elect Obama's plan to ease federal restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research.

Trounson (see photo) was quoted today in a piece in the Wall Street Journal by Gautam Naik and Robert Lee Hotz. The article was headlined "Obama's Promise on Stem Cell Doesn't Ensure New War on Diease." This morning the story appeared prominently on the main page of the WSJ web site but on page A9 of the print publication.

Trounson's remarks dealt both with the impact of California's research effort, now the world's largest source of funding for hESC science, and Obama's stem cell plans.

Concerning the Golden State, Trounson said,

"We are at such a high pace and we have so much funding ourselves that there will be no real competition to our leadership."

Trounson also said,

"The incremental money from NIH will be relatively small because of the economy."

The WSJ piece said that "two big questions" must be answered at the federal level.

"How much federal money will be made available for the research? And how quickly can America's major science-funding agency, the National Institutes of Health, take on a leadership role in a field where it has only modest experience and whose funding efforts have lagged behind several state initiatives.

"'To make stem-cell science take off, it needs something equivalent to Nixon's war on cancer,' says James Thomson, a stem-cell scientist at the University of Wisconsin who created the first human embryonic-stem-cell line in 1998. 'But because of today's economic realities, it's not going to happen for at least a couple of years.'"

The WSJ story may be limited to subscribers only. If you would like a copy, please email me at djensen@californiastemcellreport.com

Snippets: Stem Cell Lending to Pizzo Profile

Biotech Loan Program – Coming up Feb. 19 is another CIRM hearing on its ambitious plans for a biotech loan program. This session will be in La Jolla with a teleconference link to San Francisco. If you want to take part in developing the criteria for the effort, which is the brainchild of California stem cell chairman Robert Klein, you should plan on attending or at least sending comments to CIRM. The program could total as much as $750 million, according to Klein, and is aimed at financing development of stem cell therapies in cases where conventional financing is not available. The schedule also calls for a presentation on the plan to the Oversight Committee at its March meeting.

Bush v. CIRM -- The California stem cell agency's statement concerning President Bush and his comments this week regarding stem cell research stirred a mini-debate on a bioethics blog run by Los Angeles physician Maurice Bernstein. You can find the exchange here.

Pizzo Profile – The Fordham alumni magazine carried a nice profile of Philip Pizzo written by Carl Hall, who has covered stem cell issues for the San Francisco Chronicle. Pizzo (see photo from Stanford) serves on the CIRM Oversight Committee and is dean of the Stanford School of Medicine. Among other things, the piece says:

"Even some of the most persistent critics of the California stem cell enterprise credit the value of Pizzo’s steady ethical compass during debate over public oversight and financial standards. While other members of the stem cell governing board filed lengthy financial disclosures, including a fair share of monetary ties to biomedical concerns, Pizzo’s declaration was essentially a blank slate: He steers well clear of any entangling investments, a pattern that can be traced back to his days at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where he was head of the infectious disease section of the National Cancer Institute from 1980 to 1996."

The piece appeared in the summer issue but we ran across it only recently.

Stem Cell Snippets: Drooping Support, Farmland, Goldstein's Views and CIRM Scholar

Declining Support for Stem Cell Research –- The Pew Forum for Religion and Public Life has released a public opinion poll that shows weakening support for stem cell research, dropping from 57 percent two years ago to 51 percent in August this year. It also showed that 55 percent of the public had heard little or nothing about stem cell research. The polling question involving support used the phrasing "destroying potential life." The results certainly would have been more negative if the word "potential" had been omitted. "Destroying life" is how many opponents view the issue. The "take-home" point? Support for human embryonic stem cell research is fragile and can easily be undermined by events ranging from a dubious experiment or result or perceived misconduct by those funding stem cell research.

ISSCR and Farmland –- Jesse Reynolds of the Center for Genetics and Society comments critically on the involvement of the International Society for Stem Cell Research in a land development proposal that also proposes the creation of a stem cell research nonprofit. You can read it here.

Stem Cells After Bush -- Lawrence Goldstein, director of stem cell research at the University of California at San Diego, was quoted on CNN Money.com concerning the future of federal funding for stem cell research after Bush. He said. "Personally, I think it's a mistake for the scientific community to assume anything about what the likely policy will be of a government that doesn't yet exist." He also said, "I would not build a business plan based on the assumption there will be federal funding for stem cell research." The article largely covered the perspective from business on stem cell research.

CIRM Scholar – A recent cover story in Nature magazine featured research by a CIRM scholar, Laura Elias at the University of California, San Francisco. She led a neural stem cell study that revealed a mechanism that may play a role in cancer. Elias is a neuroscience graduate student in the lab of senior author Arnold Kriegstein, director of UCSF Institute for Regeneration Medicine.

ACT, NIH and No Go Federal Funding

Despite all the hoopla on the Potomac about stem cell research, don't expect the federal situation to change any time soon and eliminate the justification for California's own $3 billion stem cell research effort.

The latest evidence for that came in a piece Sunday by Rick Weiss of the Washington Post. It demonstrated the hidebound nature of the NIH as well as the constraints it faces. The piece did not have to mention NIH's tight financial situation.

Here are the first few paragraphs of Weiss' story:

"With the active encouragement of the Bush administration, U.S. scientists in the past year have developed several methods for creating embryonic stem cells without having to destroy human embryos.

"But some who now wish to test their alternatively derived cells have found themselves stymied by an unexpected barrier: President Bush's stem cell policy.

"The 2001 policy says that federal funds may not be used to study embryonic stem cells created after Aug. 9 of that year. It is based on the assumption that the only way to make the cells is by destroying human embryos -- a truism in 2001 but not any longer.

"As a result, the National Institutes of Health recently refused to consider a grant application for what would have been the first federal study to compare several of the new, less politically contentious stem cell lines.

"'This is not the way to make good health policy,'" said Robert Lanza, the frustrated vice president for research and scientific development at Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) in Worcester(see editor's note below), Mass. Lanza submitted the study proposal with stem cell experts from several major research labs."

Even with a change of administration in 2009 and a Democratic Congress, it will take a considerable amount of bureaucratic shuffling to chart a new NIH and federal course on embryonic stem cell research. Then additional funds would have to become available or be taken from existing research – an effort that would be strongly resisted. Some would argue at that point that states are already handsomely financing ESC research, and more is not needed from the feds. Even if funds become become available, then the NIH has to go through another lengthy award process.

(Editor's note: ACT is headquartered in Alameda, California – not in Massachusetts. Why is it in the Golden State? Because that is where the money is. We should also note that a public relations agency for ACT is sending copies of the Weiss story to various interested parties, probably throughout the country. Nothing wrong with that. If you have a drum, you probably should beat it.)

Zerhouni to Bush: Nation Better Served Without Research Restrictions

The head of the National Institutes of Health, an appointee of President Bush, today defied his boss and said the president's policy on embryonic stem cell research was ill-serving the nation.

The statement came from Elias Zerhouni and was reported by Angela Zimm and Neil Roland on Bloomberg.com. They covered a Senate hearing on funding for the NIH. They wrote that Zerhouni said:

"The current lines will not be sufficient. It's not possible for me to see how we can sustain the momentum of research."

Zerhouni continued:

"It's clear that American science and the nation will be better served if we have access to more cell lines."

According to Bloomberg, this is the context of the remarks.

"Senator Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, asked Zerhouni, whether lifting the restrictions would have an effect on finding new cures.

"'The answer is yes,' Zerhouni said. The exchange came at a hearing of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education."

Zerhouni could have said the same thing several years ago. But Bush is now a clearly a lame duck and on the ropes with the American public. And Zerhouni has his own future to consider. Being a handmaiden to Bush's stem cell policy is not the best position for someone who may be casting about for a new line of work.